Annalena Groppe is doing her doctorate on the topic of peace education in polarizing conflicts about democracy. The central case study is the pedagogical approach to authoritarian-populist large-scale protests at Hambach Castle. Together with conflict and educational actors, she is conducting action research to investigate how peace education didactics can impart the necessary skills in these conflicts. She is particularly interested in experience-based and power-reflexive approaches to peace education as well as different onto-epistemic notions of peace.

• Peace education
• Conflict transformation at home
• Conflicts about democracy
• Experience-based educational approaches
• Religion, peace and conflict
• Regional focus: Germany
• Action research

Since 2020 member of the editorial team of the Peace Academy blog.

2025
Guest on the Focus on Peace podcast

Workshop on approaches to peace education at the EH Freiburg's Umkämpfte Demokratie symposium

Market of Opportunities #weitergedenken at the Mainz State Parliament

2024
Anniversary lecture by the Peace Education Working Group in Munich "Precisely because of this!
Peace education in polarizing conflicts over democracy"

Keynote "Peace Education meets Global Learning"at theELAN Expert Forum

Keynote "Peace (education) in the classroom?" at the Peace Education Conference of the Lower Saxony State Institute for School Quality Development (NLQ)

Teacher training course "Peace education in polarizing conflicts about democracy"

School workshop "Conflicts everywhere - finding ways together"

Keynote speech "Peace education in, for and through transformation" at the consultation process of the Evangelical Church in Germany on the revision of the peace memorandum

Coordination Future Democracy - An oracle of democracy in the Lautr Democracy Shop (link message)

2023
Keynote speech "Peace Education & Conflicts about Democracy" at the Streit und Struntz expert exchange of the K3B - Competence Center for Municipal Conflict Counseling

Workshop at Global Kids Freizeit: "With each other instead of against each other - theater methods"

Workshop "Protest as a democratic tool - conflicts surrounding Hambach Castle" at the ForumZFD/ ProPeace inter-municipal symposium

2022
School workshop "Changeable?! - Me and the Ukraine-Russia conflict" as part of Europe Week

2021
JuLeiCa training course Conflicts everywhere?! - Learning & living peace together with FSJ/BFD volunteers

From 2026 participatory development process of the certificate program "Peacebuilding and Conflict Transformation"

Summer semester 2023 Co-Facilitation Seminar: "Global Challenges, Local Struggles, Transnational Solidarities" at the Summer Peacebuilding Institute (SPI) of the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding (CJP) at Eastern Mennonite University (EMU) in Harrisonburg, USA.

Summer semester 2022 Seminar: "Action Research: Peace Education in Polarizing Conflicts over Democracy"

Winter semester 2020/21 and summer semester 2021 Seminar: "Human rights education and peace education"

Essays; Journal articles

Groppe , Annalena; Hussak, Melanie (2021): Peace education in transformation. Potentials of a diverse field. In: Science & Peace. S. 6-9.

Starke, Christof; Groppe, Annalena (2019): Feeling peace?! How emotions have global-political significance in peace education. In: Extracurricular education. No. 2. p. 40-46.

Groppe, Annalena (2016): Spirituality as Peace Work. Idea and Practice of Spirituality as a Tool for Peace in a Jewish-Palestinian Community in Israel. In: Journal for Young Religious Studies. Vol. 11.

Books / Editorships

Hussak, Melanie; Groppe, Annalena; Lehner, Daniela; Hinrichs Karen (2026): Zukunft Friedenspädagogik - Methoden und Ansätze in Zeiten gesellschaftlicher Transformation. Barbara Budrich publishing house.

Dany, Charlotte; Groppe, Annalena (2021): Peace and the Pandemic. International Perspectives on Social Polarization and Cohesion in Times of COVID-19. Peace Perspectives - Working Paper Series of the Peace Academy Rhineland Palatinate No. 1.

Book chapter

Groppe, Annalena (2026, in publication) "Aktionsforschung in der Friedenspädagogik" In:Zukunft Friedenspädagogik, edited by Melanie Hussak, Annalena Groppe, Daniela Lehner and Karen Hinrichs. Published by Barbara Budrich.

Groppe, Annalena; Hussak, Melanie; Lehner, Daniela; Hinrichs, Karen (2026, in publication) "Zukunft Friedenspädagogik - Dialogische Resonanzen" In:Zukunft Friedenspädagogik, edited by Melanie Hussak, Annalena Groppe, Daniela Lehner and Karen Hinrichs. Published by Barbara Budrich.

Groppe, Annalena (2023) "Elicitive Peace Education in Polarizing Conflicts over Democracy. A Relational Perspective compementing Prevention of Radicalization." In: Radicalization and Collective Violence, edited by Daniel Beck and Julia Renner. Wiesbaden: Springer VS.

Groppe, Annalena, and Melanie Hussak (2023): "Peace education perspectives on heterogeneity as a potential for conflict transformation in Landau". In: Heterogeneity and Diversity in Medium-Sized Cities: The Example of Landau in der Pfalz, edited by Barbara Pusch, Susanne Spieker, and Christopher Horne. Pp. 67-83. Wiesbaden: Springer Fachmedien .doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-39076-1_4.

Other (blog/newspaper)

Groppe, Annalena (2023): Moving Peace Education Learning in polarizing conflicts as a visiting scholar in the USA. Peace Academy Blog. 27.09.2023.

Groppe, Annalena (2023): Conflicts over democracy at Hambach Castle - points of contact between conflict counseling and critical (peace) education. In: Streit und Struntz impulse text no. 31.

Groppe, Annalena (2022): Conflicts about Neustadt as a place of democracy - Municipal conflict counseling as potential? Peace Academy blog. 11.11.2022

Groppe, Annalena, Kristina Langeder-Höll, and Birgit Riegler (2021): "Demokratie_Brüche_erhellen. Annual Conference of the Peace Education Working Group of the AFK, Landau/Pfalz, October 11-13, 2021". In: Science & Peace, No. 4: pp. 55-56.

Groppe, Annalena (2021): Peace Education in Polarizing Conflicts over Democracy. In: Dany, Charlotte; Groppe, Annalena: Peace Perspectives No. 1: Peace and the Pandemic - International Perspectives on Social Polarization and Cohesion in Times of COVID-19. pp. 6-15.

Groppe, Annalena (2020): Connected in quarantine? New Forms of Transpersonal Learning in the COVID-19 Pandemic. Peace Academy Blog. 25.04.2020.

Groppe, Annalena (2019): Unfolding Stories - Transforming Understandings of Development. Many Peaces Magazine. 29.05.2019.